


The Sun So Hot I Froze To Death

by the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord



Series: Monster-Guy and Freak On a Leash - A Love Story [1]
Category: Creepypasta - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 03:03:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5358617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord/pseuds/the_names_of_those_who_love_the_lord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toby Rogers lived next to the forest where children sometimes died. His father wouldn't look at him anymore. Shapes moved in his walls at night. A crazy hobo with a Southern lilt in his voice and half a face had taken a shine to him.</p><p>Everything was fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chaos Theory

_I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee,_

_I'm goin' to Lousiana, my true love for to see_

_It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry,_

_The sun so hot I froze to death, Susanna don't you cry._

-"Oh, Susanna!", composer unknown.

* * *

The day God decided to kill Toby Rogers' mother and sister dawned bright and airy.

There were four of them in the car, the two parents and the kids, barrelling down a busy highway in a battered Ford Aspire. Toby's father was at the wheel. He was hungover. He was going too fast.

The Ford slammed into an oncoming Mini Cooper at half-nine exactly. Both cars were doing ninety miles per hour, which resulted in an impact speed of twice that. The Mini bore the brunt of the physical damage, but the Ford spun off the road like a top and careened sideways into a tree. One of Toby's teeth got knocked out. His mother and sister were mangled beyond recognition, their bodies speared by the splintered wreckage of the right-hand doors.

 After about a minute and a half of effort, Toby's father managed to wrench open his door. He clambered out of the car, fell to his knees, and vomited onto the gritty yellow grass. 

Toby stayed very still. His sister's hand, still warm and intact, was limp around his own. He sat there in the hissing car, mouth filling with blood, until the paramedics arrived to cut him out. 

In the months and years that would follow that bright morning, Toby found that his memory of the crash was sanded over, chipped at, washed away. He forgot the crazy panic of that single second when the car ricocheted off the motorway. He forgot his sister's scream when the first of the shrapnel pierced her.

By the time he'd reached seventeen, he recalled nothing of it. He knew, in theory, that his mother and sister had existed, and that they did not exist anymore because of a road accident.That contented him; he could live with that. As far as he was concerned, that was the end of the matter.

* * *

Toby dropped out of high school two months after the crash. He was fourteen. His father, at that point, was more of a hermit crab than a man; he stayed inside the house, in his room, drinking more than he ate and always, always staring out at the forest. Toby ran into some problems with a gang of sophomores, due to a mild stutter, and began to cut class. Two weeks later, he ran out of the main entrance for the last time. His hair dripped toilet water. His backpack was missing. His father didn't say anything about it. The teachers, unwilling to get involved with the situation, didn't pursue it.

Toby still liked learning, despite his ambivalence towards school, and made weekly pilgrimmages to the library to chew through the Dewey Decimal System. He read what he liked-astronomy, mythology, the occasional brave foray into calculus. The library became his second womb-a warm little attic above the town hall, muffled and quiet, replete with beanbags and soft chairs. Toby stopped noticing style, or voice, or metaphor-he was only ever satisfied by dry facts. He immersed himself in the regular and the expected as his home and father fell apart.

Mr. Rogers still bought food for himself and his son out of his wife and daughter's life insurance, but apart from that he might as well have been a figment of the imagination. He didn't speak to Toby. He didn't wash himself, and developed a crusty layer of dirt all over his body. His beard darkened along his jaw.

One night, when by some miracle they were both eating in the kitchen, Toby happened to feel a long hair in his mouth. He grimaced and spat out the bolus of takeaway hamburger into his hand to throw away. 

His father grunted, reached across the table, and smashed Toby's head into his plate. 

"Don't do that," he growled. "Fuckin' hell, we didn't raise you to do that." 

It was the first time he'd said a word to Toby in three years. 

Toby stayed sprawled on the table for a moment, breathing hard. Then, he pushed himself back up onto his elbows and carried on eating, his expression thoughtful. As he chewed, a striking purple bruise bloomed on his forehead. When he was done, he washed the delph he'd used and sloped back up the stairs into his room. There was a door set into the wall beside his window that he'd never seen before.

Or maybe he had. Holes were appearing in his memories, as though his mind were a bedsheet attacked by moths.

The door was still there when he woke up later on that night, and there was a person-shaped shadow crouching on the end of the bed. 

Shock ripped through Toby like a gunshot. He turned over, fingers twitching, but the figure sprang at him and clapped its soil-smelling palm over his mouth.

"If ya didn't wanna visitor," it drawled, its words marbled with a Southern twang, "ya shouldna left the window open."

 


	2. A Young Deer, or Maybe A Leopard

"Hey, ssssshhhhh," the shadow coaxed, and it patted Toby's brow with the hand that wasn't clamped over his mouth. "Hush now, it's  _awwwww_ right." A sliver of moonlight glinted off its teeth. Toby arched against its weight-it was crouched on his chest like a nightmare, leering down at him, its skin hanging off its arms. He screamed against the hand and forced his jaws apart to bite it. The shadow yelped at the pinch of his teeth, but it wouldn't let go.

"Nibble all you want, boyo," it grunted. "I been- _ah!-_ bitten harder by fuckin' froggies...." But there was blood dribbling into Toby's mouth, and it tasted like a car crash, and he rolled the shadow's flesh between his teeth. It keened through its nose and tore its hand away, cursing.

"Little fucker! If this shit needs stitches, I'm make 'em outta your guts!" 

Toby yelled once- _"Dad!"-_ and then there was a cold gleam of steel pressed up against his chin.

"Squeal again," the shadow growled, "an' I swear to sweet Jesus I'll give ya a haircut. Startin' riiiiiiiiight  _here."_ The knife twisted and broke the skin. Toby felt little wet droplets beading there and shut his mouth as fast as a coyote trap.

The shadow swung its feathered head around as though it were a startled dog, searching for noises. Across the hall, Toby's father grunted in his sleep, mumbled the name of his dead wife, and went quiet. The shadow breathed a long sigh of relief and looked down at Toby, grinning.

No eyes glinted in its bony sockets.

"Now, you just lie easy there for a second an' I'll tell ya what's up," it hissed. "I'm lost. I been lost these past four years now, an' it's about time I knew where the fuck I was." Its long finger scuttled up to Toby's eyes. "Blink once if y'understand the situation." Toby blinked, and the shadow snorted out a laugh. "Good. Now, let's cut to the chase: what state is this?"

Toby opened his mouth, tried to croak out an answer, licked his lips. The shadow leaned in close and bared its teeth.

"Got no tongue, boy? C'mon, it's a simple question....you want I guess? Don't make me guess. I'll bite out your....I'll bite you in the throat. An' you'll die." It scowled, frustrated. "Tell me!"

"C-c-c-c-can'ttttt," Toby shivered. "Stt-t-t-t-utter."

The shadow pulled away and stared at him. The icy sting at his throat withdrew, and Toby gulped down his first full breath of air in five minutes. 

"A stutter," it repeated, sounding uncertain. "I, uh, dunno what that means. You can't talk, is it?"

"W-w-when I'm sc-c-c-c-ared," Toby gasped, "I h-have d-d-d-difficult-t-ties. T-t-talking, I mean."

"Huh," the shadow grunted. "Convenient. Well, I guess I'll just haveta in _ter_ pret you. So, tell me. Which state am I in?"

Toby coughed the lump out of his throat. "O-O-O-Oregon!"

"Oregon? Jesus! The shadow's shock appeared genuine. "Where the hell's that?"

"W-w-w-w-west c-coasttt. Nnnnorth. N-n-next ttto W-Wash-sh-shing-g-ton."

The shadow leaned back a little. A slice of moonlight gleamed through the window and illuminated its puzzling face. It was like an optical illusion: where was the nose? Why were the eyes so dull and creased? Dear God-was that its mouth, that dreadful black sneer? those raw lips? those many teeth, exposed in yellow swathes along where its cheeks should have been?

The beast coughed. Its hand crept back from Toby's eyelids, like a spider dying, and it slid off Toby's chest and knelt beside him. Its desecrated mouth hung open as though all of the tendons therein had been severed. 

For a long moment, neither moved. In the next room, a clock chimed twice. The moonbeams illuminated more of that awful face than Toby could stand. He shut his eyes tight and searched his mind-in vain-for a prayer.

The beast laid a hand on him. It did so gently-like Toby was a baby it was watching sleep-but he jumped, all the same.

"I'm real sorry," it mumbled. "I....I'm not in good shape right now. I shouldna crept in here 'n gotten up on you. That was bad of me, an' I apologise." It groaned and scratched at its mouth. "God, what a mess...."

"It-it's not a mess," Toby stammered. He wriggled onto his elbows and inched upright, trembling. "B-b-but....why'd-d-d-d you d-do it?"

" _Why?_ Funny question." The monster tilted its head and ran a thoughtful hand through its shaggy, leonine mane. "I don't ever have reasons for the shit I do, but I guess I'd haveta say that it was 'cos your window was open. Wouldn't blame ya. It's a warm night."

Toby leant back against the headrest and shuddered. He was coated in a thin patina of terror-sweat, and it made him feel cold. He drew the blanket up around his shoulders. "W-who are y-y-y-you?"

The shadow tilted its head to the side and considered him the way a dog does an ant. "Me? Why, I'm nobody."

"S-surely you have a n-n-name."

"Hey, your stutter's gettin' better." The shadow's mouth stretched into a smile, and for a moment it almost looked kind. "I usedta have a name. I dunno what it was. Something fuckin' ridiculous, I can tell ya that much. Like what you'd call a mongrel." It stood up, clinging to the headrest for support. "Say, c'n I ask ya a favour?"

"I t-think."

"Do me a solid and lead me over to the window."

"I c-could turn on the li-light," Toby offered, reaching out for the switch.

"Won't do no good," the shadow muttered. Standing up, it had a human shape. The dreadful strips of skin hanging from the torso turned out to be some sort of hoodie, poorly made and ill-fitting. "I'm blind. And I wouldn't put a light on anyway-not if ya wanna sleep this week. I look like a dead cat got left out in the heat."

"Oh....right." Toby slung himself out of the bed and took the shadow's arm. It felt warm and solid underneath the damp, earth-smelling sleeve. The beast, it turned out, was nothing more than a person-cold, and an inch shorter than he was. He guided him-he was pretty sure it was a guy-over to the window.

"Much obliged," the guy said in his gravelly drawl. He hopped out of the window, as sleek as a cat, and sprang away into the forest. Toby watched him go; he moved like an antelope on the savannah, head held high, although he didn't go very fast. 

His bare feet glowed blue-white in the dark as he disappeared into the trees.

Toby stayed at the window a while, wondering if it'd all been a dream. But his eyelids felt gritty with tiredness, so it must have been real.

He fell asleep thinking up names one might call both a dog and a baby.

 


	3. Warning Shots

It rained the following day. Blobby droplets splatted against the windows and slid down in wavery wet sheets. The fields surrounding the forest, already marshy and soft, turned into lakes. Toby stared out and frowned. This would put a kibosh on his trip to the library-he could only get there by walking; a two-mile trip on the best of days. He groaned and turned away from the window-sill.

His father wasn't up yet, so Toby made his own breakfast. He set it down in front of the little portable TV on the kitchen table and turned the channel to the Saturday morning cartoons. Tom chased Jerry; the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles foiled the Shredder and kicked the shit out of the Foot Clan. Toby sank spoonfuls of Choco Puffs in lukewarm milk.

"Damn Foot goons," someone said behind him. "Ain't got no manners."

Toby spat half-masticated Puffs all over the table and span around. 

The shadow-guy looked much worse in natural light. His face was haggard, and as ageless as a cadaver's. His skin was striped with garish sores and gashes. Whatever eyes he'd once had were long gone; the sockets were filmed over with angry pink scar tissue. The mouth was more of a misshapen letterbox-carved up at some point, infected, and just starting to heal. 

Toby choked on his scream.

"Hey, now," the monster drawled, patting his arm. "Gettin' into a state won't do ya no good. It's me, remember? Came into your room last night?"

Toby remembered. He exhaled, his breath rattling in his throat, and forced out a question: "....W-what are yoouuu d-doing? H-h-here?"

"D'ya talk like that all the time?" the monster inquired, feeling around the kitchen until it reached the fridge. "Or does it, uh, go away after a lil' while?" He reached inside, took out a bag of shredded cheese, sniffed the contents, and transferred a messy handful from the bag to his red hole of a mouth. "Mmmff. Cheddar."

"It g-gets b-b-bettterrr over t-time," Toby told him, grimacing at the way strands of cheese got tossed out of the sides of his face with every flick of his tongue. He hopped off his stool and slotted a slice of bread into the battered toaster. "St-t-top that. You'll g-get geeeerrrms in it-t-t. Y-you haven't answeeerrredddd....my question."

"You're like a radio with a bad aerial," Monster-Guy told him. He chucked the half-empty cheese packet back into the fridge and shut the door. "Awrighty, I'll tell ya: I'm hungry. I don't got no food. You got food. It's how I roll. I eat your food an' you let me 'cos I'm blind an' homeless and handsome as fuck."

Toby snorted. The toast popped, and he spread it with butter substitute and thrust it into Monster-Guy's scabby hands. "Eat that-t. And g-g-get ooouuuut."

Monster-Guy took small, careful bites, chewing as though his teeth hurt. Toby got back on the school and splashed the spoon back into his cereal. On the TV screen, the Rugrats were causing wacky hijinks on a day trip to the Grand Canyon.

Monster-Guy swallowed and said, "Oh, yeah-there's something in the woods."

Toby craned his head around and raised an eyebrow.

"Really. A s-something. Wow."

"Shut up, prick," the monster replied, with no trace of malice. "I was in there last night. I heard a bunch of kids dickin' around-kickin' at trees, yellin', ya know. From what they was saying, I guessed that they was makin' a movie. 

"Well, 'round about a half-hour after I first noticed 'em, they all started screaming an' crying. I got spooked, so I sorta hitched myself up onto a tree branch and tried to keep quiet. They hollered for hours, I reckon-it came an' went. After every round, they'd all get to calling each other out-'Amelia! Brandon! Where are you?!' Then it was only one guy, stumblin' about the place and kinda puling. Whining. An' then he yelled, an' there was this real loud crunch and I don't know what happened to him, but there was nothing after that." 

Toby had long since stopped chewing. Praying that the creature sinking toast in the seat across from him was lying, he grabbed the remote and changed the channel to the local news. 

_"--are treating the deaths as suspicious. The state pathologist has been notifed.The authorities urge anyone who was in the vincity of Annewood between midnight last night and six o'clock this morning to contact their local police station immediately, as they may have vital information. Tom, back to you--"_

Toby switched it off and laid down the remote. His hands were shaking. The monster carried on nibbling its toast, unperturbed.

"Hey." Toby reached across to shake his arm. "Y-you gotta....t-t-t-tell the c-coooppppps."

"Can't. I'm wanted for a triple homicide in Tennessee. Happened four years ago, but they don't let the statute of limitations run out on that shit." Monster-Guy finished his toast and slid off his stool. "Much obliged for the food, buddy, but I gotta hit the road. When does your daddy go to bed?"

Toby took a deep breath, hit a block, tried again. "Uhh, uhhh, t-ten. Midnight. I d-d-dunno."

"I'll make it eleven. Keep that window of yours on the latch, ya hear me?" The monster reached across and slapped Toby on the shoulder. "Wait up for me. I don't wanna sleep in them woods tonight."

Dainty as a young hare, the creature leapt out off the window and strolled off down the sodden road, barefoot as an ape and dah-dee-dahing the tune to "The Streets of Laredo". Minutes later, Toby's father lumbered into the kitchen and heaved himself up onto a stool. 

Toby, glad at even a hint of routine, got up to make him some coffee and cereal, just like he'd done every morning since the crash. The bruise on his forehead throbbed like a bass line as he poured cold milk into the bowl. He put it all in front of his father, who didn't say anything.

But maybe giving Toby that yellowing bruise had softened something in him, after all. "Heard on the radio that some kids died in the woods last night."

Toby's voice gave away nothing-not even his stutter. "Yeah. Few of them. Murdered."

"Huh." Mr. Rogers took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. "You best stay away from Annewood until they catch whoever did it."

Toby nodded. He didn't need to go to the forest, anyway. Monster-Guy was gonna come to him. That was what they'd agreed.

* * *

He tumbled through Toby's bedroom window just as the clock in the next room struck eleven. Toby was waiting for him with a glass of full-fat milk and some fried bread he'd made on the sly.

"I-I remembered my name," the monster panted. It looked up at Toby from where it lay splayed belly-down on the carpet; its mangled face was pure terror. "I remembered my name, an' I  _met_ it.  _It came after me."_

"The thing that....ate those kids?" Toby asked, as he helped the monster up. It nodded and spat.

"You bet your Yankee ass," it hissed. "It's horrible. It's like the fuckin' bogeyman and a vampire had a baby outta wedlock!" 

Toby handed him the plate and the glass without comment.

The monster pointed its shrivelled relics of eyes at them like he expected to see something. Then, being very careful, he sat down on the side of the bed and made the bread and milk vanish. Toby watched him and waited, trying to imagine what abomination could frighten this sickening horror film of a human being.

He finished off the impromptu supper and laid the delph down on the carpet, away from his feet. He flopped over backwards, stretched himself out across the rumpled quilt, and sighed.

"Jeff Woods," he murmured. "That's what it was. Fuck that thing for drawin' it out of me."

Toby laid down next to it and pondered werewolves, and little girl-ghosts, and the Blair Witch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My version of Jeff the Killer is a Tennessee boy who talks like Be A Hillbilly Day because he stopped going to school back in the seventh grade. Please keep that in mind as you navigate through his apostrophes.


	4. Trees Don't Wear Suits

"We gotta go after it," Jeff said.

They were watching the portable in Toby's room with the sound off. A porno from the seventies was playing; the lead man was balls-deep in a woman's ass and had yet to take off his socks. Toby clicked his tongue and shot him a glare, not caring that he couldn't see it.

"Why?" he asked. "It....m-might have been n-n-nothing. A coyote. A d-deer."

Jeff frowned-the sight of it twisted Toby's stomach-and mashed his knuckles into the balding carpet. "Nah, I know what deer smell like. It's musky, like horses. An' I been stared down by coyotes before-sons-uh-bitches aren't shy 'bout it. They growl, or they slink off. Got cornered by a couple one time in Wyoming." He sighed and tipped his head to the blue light of the screen; it glinted off his teeth. "This thing....it had lasers for eyes, I thought. I felt like I was bein' fried, or threaded with wire. Nothing mortal does that." He turned his head to Toby; in the dark, with his ruined features in shadow and his thick black hair hanging around his shoulders, he was almost good-looking. "Boy, I never got your name."

"Toby Rogers."

"Obliged to make your ac _quain_ tance," Jeff drawled, lingering on the vowels as though to savour them. "But-no word of a lie-that thing won't leave. It won't  _stop._ I know the type," and for a moment he sounded too sad to talk.

But he rallied. "Naw, we haveta find it out. Kill it, if we can. Run it outta town, if we can't. C'mon, Toby, you think something that evil's gonna stay in Annewood forever? We gotta stop it afore it spreads."

"Dad said no."

"Boy, come here," Jeff snapped, and grabbed his head and leaned in close before Toby could dart away.

He found the old bruise by touch and pressed on it-not to hurt, but as though he were a doctor learning the extent of the damage. Toby winced, the pressure sending sparks of pain down his nerves like lightning through a powerline.

"He did that to you," Jeff murmured. "Where's your mama? What does she say, huh?"

Toby took a deep breath so that there wouldn't be any blocks. "Dead. Sister, too. C-c-c-car craaash."

"An' was it Daddy's fault?"

"Dunno. Maybe. Memory's b-bad."

Jeff sat back, but his hand stayed on Toby's face. It slid down, following the curve of his cheekbones.

"When's the next time he goes out?" he asked him.

Toby shrugged. "H-he always pi-pi-picks up groceries ooonnnnnn Thurssd-days. T-tomm-m-morrow."

Jeff sighed and turned back to the movie. "Wish I could see what was goin' on here. Y'know, I never got to watch a porno."

Toby made a sound that he hoped would convery surprise. 

"Went blind at thirteen. That's when my face got like this." Jeff scratched at the scarring flesh at the corners of his mouth. "Well, tomorrow we'll go into that forest and find out what the fuck's goin' on in there."

"But Dad-"

Jeff reached up and probed the bruise.

"Enough about him," he said.

* * *

 Mr. Rogers got on a bus at four o'clock the next afternoon to go shopping in the big town, Coleyville. Five minutes after the bus had disappeared up the road, a graceful, upright silhouette bounded out of the forest. Toby was waiting for it on the porch with an old pair of socks and a pair of his shoes.

Jeff was out of breath by the time he reached him, and waved him away until he could talk. When he spoke, his voice trembled.

"From the moment I left here last night," he gasped, "to the hour the sun rose-I hope to never live through such a time again. It watched me, Toby. It followed me. It knew I couldn't see it. I swear to God I heard it laugh."

"Calm," Toby muttered. "Here. Take these."

Jeff took the offering, bemused. "What the hell are they?"

"Socks. Shoes. Cold feet. Put them on."

"Oh, you're just the sweetest thing I ever did meet," Jeff scoffed. But he put them on anyway, and groaned with near-orgasmic relief.

"God, I forgot how it feels to wear shoes. To have dry feet.These'll help where we're going. Ya ready, Toby-boy?"

Toby nodded, remembered himself, and said, "Yep."

"You ain't got no other choice. Care to guide me?"

Toby took his arm, and they set off towards Annewood. The trees seemed to draw themselves up to their full heights as they came closer, and bushes and broken branches appeared in the gloom between them. 

"Tell me when to lift my feet," Jeff whispered. Toby wanted to scream that he didn't have to be so quiet, that there wasn't any  _need,_ but he was so afraid to be wrong. To jinx it. 

That whisper changed the tone of the whole thing. It had been a jolly jape, the sort of naughty adventure you'd find Enid Blyton's kids getting up to. Now, gripping Jeff's upper arm and hissing warnings about tree stumps and exposed roots, disobeying his father as he'd never done until then, Toby felt a strange heat simmer in his chest. There was something both threatening and exciting about this ridiculous trip; a hint of the worst recesses of the adult world. 

"Higher, lift it higher," he muttered, and Jeff did so without question. Again that thrill in the belly; again that mixture of shame and delight.

* * *

Once they'd battled and hacked their way into the forest proper, Jeff took charge of the expedition-it was his territory, after all. He led Toby through the foliage, stopping every so aften to scent the air.

"You know what it smells like?" Toby asked him, not able to believe it.

Jeff grunted. "I know what everything smells like. I know each little sound that everything in a forest makes, too. It's how I get by."

"So, your other s-senses got better when you l-lost your sight," Toby concluded.

Jeff tilted his head back and listened to a woodpecker knocking over head. "There's this African legend I heard once," he said, sounding as though he knew the weight of ever word. "A blind man and a young hunter are in the jungle. The old man's a real wise guy, everybody respects him, and the hunter's jealous. So one day, when they go out to the traps to get the birds they've caught, the fucker decides to trick the old guy. See, the blind man's gotten a fat wild turkey, but he's only caught a skinny vulture. 

"He hands the vulture to the blind guy and goes, "That's yours," and the oldie just smiles and says, I heard you takin' it outta your own trap."

"The hunter, he says what you said-You hear things better than me? and the blind guy says, Naw, I just pay more attention to what it is I hear." Jeff aimed a smile up at the woodpecker and continued on. "And so do I."

They made their way into the oldest parts of the forest, where whatever light they had was gloomy and tinted green. Here they saw the remains of the carnage: a square patch of earth marked off with crime scene tape.

"This is where the first scream came from," Jeff said. He pointed at a looped archway made from the roots of an oak tree. "I was sleeping roundabout there, I reckon. C'mon, help me look around."

They picked their way through the undergrowth, kicking aside branches and rocks as they went, but found nothing. The police had done their job well-as was to be expected. Still, Toby felt so disappointed that it was a tangible weight on his chest.

He sighed. "Well, that wasn't w-worth shit," he tossed over his shoulder at Jeff.

No reply came, save a strangled whimper.

"J-Jeff?" Toby glanced across at him. The boy was standing with his arms hanging down like a scarecrow's. His face was turned upwards at a long, thin tree.

Wait.

That wasn't a tree. Trees didn't wear suits.

Toby reached out, grabbed Jeff's shoulder, and dragged him away. They stumbled back the way they'd come, panting, fighting through patches of briars. And all the time they could feel the monster behind them, almost touching them, keeping up with them without even having to try. Toby didn't have to look back to know it was there.

Then they were out of the forest, pushing through the long grass of the field, and the thing behind them wasn't there anymore. Jeff fell to his knees and retched; Toby pulled him back up by the collar of his hoodie and kept on going. By the time they'd reached the house, they were in tears.

"Ya see?" Jeff coughed. He moaned at the pain in his eyes. "It's real, and lives right next door to ya. Oh, Toby, oh my God, what're we gonna  _do?"_

Toby shook his head and wheezed. The words  _I don't know_ congealed in his throat.

Around the front of the house, a door slammed. 

"Dad," Toby choked out, squeezing Jeff's shoulder. "G-g-g-go!"

Jeff shook his head so fast that his neck cricked. "I'm not going back in there! I'll let your dad kill me first-" and he lunged for the back door.

Toby caught him and clapped a hand around his mouth. The sudden and complete change in power-a mirror of how they'd first met-wrongfooted him for a moment.

"My-my roooooom," he muttered into his ear. "St-t-t-stay."


	5. Field of Flowers

"Describe it to me," Jeff said. He was lying on Toby's bed, head tilted at the ceiling. Mr. Rogers was getting drunk in the next room. The boys were being very quiet. "Speak slowly. I got all the time in the world."

Toby took a deep breath, clearing his mind of the endless babbling, the clatter of his own thoughts.

"It was very tall," he began, allowing his tongue to work its own way through the words instead of pushing it to a stutter. "It was as tall as the biggest tree you've ever seen in your life."

A twitch of Jeff's scabby lips might have been a smile. "That was a redwood. Saw it in a state park. I hugged it."

"Well, it wasn't as big as a redwood. P-perhaps half that."

Jeff nodded. "Go on."

"It had white skin. Not Caucasian-white. Like quartz. And it was wearing....a suit."

"Like a businessman." Jeff paused. "Did it look like a guy or a lady?"

"A guy. Bald." Toby paused to pant. This was the scary part: he had to control it, and the only way to control a stutter was to surrender to it. "H-he had no faaace."

Jeff grunted. "Huh. Whaddaya mean?"

"No eyes. No nose. No mouth. J-jussst hollows. As though the skin h-had been stretch over the holes. Smooth. No scars."

A moment of reflection. Jeff sighed and rolled onto his side. His face was an inch away from Toby's thigh. 

"Tobe," he murmured, "I really wanna shower. Right now. This minute."

"W-why?"

"Why? 'Cos I've been wearin' these clothes for these past three weeks. I been livin' rough with only shallow rivers to wash in. Baby, I'm filthy inside and out, but I c'n at least take care of the outside."

Baby.

Toby didn't comment. Inside his heart, a field of flowers was blooming and he didn't know why. 

All he said was, "I-I'll heeelllllllp y-y-y-you." 

The rubbery, pitted skin around Jeff's mouth and nose stretched and retreated. He was smiling again. Toby wished he'd stop.

* * *

 The Rogers' bathroom was tiny. It looked, at first glance, like a utilities cupboard that someone had tiled and crammed a toilet, sink, and showerhead into. The shower wasn't even separated from the rest of the room by a glass partition. Mr. Rogers had drilled a small steel shelf into the adjacent wall in Toby's infancy. It had fallen down many times over the years, often clanking off the children's skulls on the way down. Toby bore a small scar due to such a mishap. Over the years, it had shrunk to a thin white line on his brow. 

Jeff peeled off his rank, filthy hoodie-a moth fluttered out from its folds-and clutched onto Toby's shoulder for support as he removed his pyjama pants. He wasn't wearing any underwear, and the naked bulb overhead threw every cut and graze into sharp relief. 

Jeff wasn't pretty, not in the conventional sense. His skin looked washed out, as though he were wrapped tight in a dingy old bedsheet. His bones made little bumps and crests-Toby could see his scapulae, his ribs, his pelvis flared out above his genitals. 

And yet, despite his fucked-up face, despite his pitiful ruin of a body, despite the jarring swing of his blind head, Jeff possessed grace. After everything he'd obviously been through, he was still an elegant bastard. Leading him towards the shower, Toby watched him move-God, it was like he walked on springs, like an Arabian colt-and thought he was about to die, his head and body thumping with a strange, beautiful pain.

There was a huge, patchy burn scar splashed across Jeff's lower back-a wrinkled pink lake on a polluted tundra. Toby reached out and pressed his index finger against it. The shock of the touch sparked up his arm the way it does when one falls heavy on one's hands.

"What's thisss?"

"Huh?" Jeff didn't seem disturbed. He groped around the shower unit, looking for the dial. "Pay no mind for now. There's a story behind it, but it's long an' leaves a bad taste. I'll tell it to ya later."

Toby reached over and turned on the shower. Jeff jumped and gasped when the first spray of cold water hit him. He stumbled backwards.

"Turnitoffturnitoffturnit _off!"_

"C-calm down. It'll warm up soon." A few giggles escaped Toby as he squirted a glob of shampoo into Jeff's cupped hands. "And k-keep quiet. Dad's a light sleeper."

"Hey, that stutter of yours is pretty much gone now." Jeff's hair, which until that moment had resembled a blackthorn bush, began to relax and lengthen beneath the lukewarm spray. A thin stream of watery dirt dribbled down his back. "You ain't a-scared of me no more."

"You talk like 'Little House on the Prairie'."

"Man, I loved that show when I was a kid." A few more of Jeff's butter-yellow teeth crept into sight as he smiled. "Me an' my brother Lou? We usedta watch it every Saturday." He snorted. "Came a day when I was ten an' he was six, an' I dressed him up as Laura. Mama and Daddy near to broke their ribs laughing."

"Hmm," Toby said, wondering where Mama and Daddy were just then, as their son rinsed off three years' worth of grot in his shower.

"Dead, now," Jeff said, as though Toby had asked aloud. "Goin' on a few years. Lou went with 'em." The sigh that followed sounded too heavy and old for such a slight person. "Can I borrow some of your clothes? And maybe your toothbrush?"

* * *

 A while later, when the sun had sunk into a brilliant bank of red clouds, Jeff looked like a different person. His hair was sleek and shiny; his skin, to Toby's surpise, was pink. Flopped on his bed in sweatpants and an old sweater, Jeff appeared as domestic as a kitten. 

Toby lay down beside him and stared up at the ceiling. 

"Penny for your thoughts," Jeff drawled.

"Nothing, really," Toby replied, as he watched the plaster bulge outwards like there was a huge worm moving in it.

Jeff stretched and rolled over. "Hey, you want I tell you why I look so bad?" he asked.

"You don't look bad." The bulge in the plaster slithered down the wall, where it was joined by a similar lump. The two shapes wriggled together.

"I'll tell you," Jeff insisted.

Toby knew he was going insane. He groped around for Jeff's nearest hand, grabbed it, and stroked it as though it were a tame bird.

"I'll listen," he said, and meant it.


	6. The Walls Are Making Love

"I usedta live in Tennessee," Jeff murmured. He slid one shy foot over Toby's leg. "In a trailer park called Coleman's. 'Bout two miles south from Johnson City."

Toby watched the shapes in the walls entwine in erotic passion. Jeff's foot, pressed against his knees, reminded him that he was awake and alive. "Did you like it there?"

"Uh-huh. Sure did." Jeff sighed. "It was perfect. People didn't worry or think-we were like animals, I guess. Nobody at Coleman's ever griped about what was gonna happen to 'em. We just....we just  _lived._ Every day was so fuckin' beautiful."

He hugged himself and rocked back and forth.

"When I was twelve years old, I started hangin' out with three boys from the city named Randy, Keith an' Troy. They was in the eighth grade. I thought they was cool, y'know?"

"I know."

"Well, turns out they thought I was just a stupid lil' kid they could mess with. After a while, I copped that they weren't nice, so I told 'em to fuck off one night and went home. Told Lou I'd have more time to play soccer with him." Jeff's lower lip trembled the tiniest bit. "The week after, I met them at this kid's birthday party...."

He trailed off and clawed at his eyes, groaning at the pain. "Hurts," he whispered. 

Toby took his hands and pulled them away. "Don't. Leave it."

Jeff thrashed around for a few seconds, reminding Toby of a snake he'd seen with its back broken. But he got a hold of whatever it was in him that made his eyes burn, and quietened.

"They gave me a paper the size of my littlest fingernail." His voice was steam rising off a rotting swamp. "It was acid. Said the pictures would be real pretty." He paused for breath. "I had a bad trip. Thought the world was ending. First I did this to my face-" he jabbed a finger at his infected, perpetual grin-"an' then I took a hatchet to Mama and Daddy. Then to Lou."

Toby slipped an arm underneath his head. Jeff wriggled so as to fit there better and sobbed, once, his entire body seizing with the pain. 

"Got doused with hot oil a year ago," he added. "That's where the thing on my back comes from. I can't feel nothing there."

"H-how'd that happen?"

"I was, uh, I was lookin' for food near this Italian restaurant, I think. Sometimes they just dump entire dinners in the trash 'cos people didn't like 'em. I was there, rootlin' through like a raccoon-makin a lotta noise, if truth be told. This chef saw me, I think....all I heard was this scream. Words in it. Mangled. Then a splash, a hissin' sound, an' I smelled something bad an' my back was on fire...."

Toby slung his other arm around his shaking body and pushed his mouth up to his ear.

"Shh-shh-shhhh....s'all right, nobody's gonna hurt you. You don't have to say it."

"I do," Jeff protested. "I'm okay. I'm good."

He stayed silent for a few minutes as he corralled his thoughts. Toby let him lie there, didn't take his arms back.

"I ran into a park where they had a lake," Jeff continued, sounding weary. "I waded in 'til the water reached my shoulderblades. The pain sorta faded, but my whole back got itchy. Like there was a million little fleas on it. That's when I knew I had a real big problem.

"I came down with a fever. Came down hard. Wandered through that park for three days straight, outta my head completely. I dunno how I never got caught by the cops....anyway, it broke at sunset on the third day. I got food at a shelter-kept my hood up, they didn't ask any questions-and headed on out. I been on the road ever since."

"Wait," Toby said. "You stayed in that city a while?"

Jeff nodded. "Reckon it was near to six months-long enough for spring to turn to summer, anyway."

"How'd you manage after the....when you first lost your sight?"

"Well, see, I didn't lose it right away. I ran away from Coleman's that night, still crazy, and I had the knife I'd used to...." Jeff trailed off, coughed, and soldiered on. "Anyhow, I felt the worst I've ever done. I knew I needed to hurt for what I'd done, so I took the knife an' played around my eyes for a bit. Ended up fuckin' up the lids. Eyes completely dried out in a week." He shuddered. "Awful, awful, awful."

"But how'd you get around?" Toby pressed.

"Oh...." Jeff waved his hand as though to make light of months of agony, of embarrassment, of fear and helplessness. "I got used to it. I moved slow, robbed dumpsters 'n takeaways, stayed in Tennessee for the most part."

"Did anyone ever see?"

" _See?"_ Jeff shook his head. "Toby, folks  _knew_ me. Well, not as Jeff Woods. More like the local tramp. I was pretty much a bogeyman for the preschool kids. I've heard of a beggar they had yonder in Ireland way back, this sham called Johnny Fortycoats. People let 'im be 'cos he was....uh, around all the time. He was part of the scenery. So was I, until that thing with the hot oil."

Toby rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. The shapes had wrapped around one another-Toby could see the S-shaped groove where their masses joined-and were writhing together in the plaster. They looked happy, stretching and contracting like lovers in bed.

And at that moment, Toby decided to relinquish logic and fact. His father was groaning in his whiskey dreams next door. There was a five-foot-tall murderer with no face worth mentioning lying in his arms. Annewood was having the shit haunted out of it by a nine-foot-tall business monster.

"Hey," he said, turning back to his friend.

Jeff rolled his head towards his voice. "What?"

"There are things moving in the w-wallssss," Toby whispered. And kissed him.


	7. It's A Small Crime, And I Got No Excuse

Up until that moment, Toby hadn't comprehended his own humanity. The fact of his physical self was one that he'd never been able to absorb. He'd known that, theoretically speaking, he was a rancid horndog simmering in hormones and vile biological urges. 

Now, though, he knew that he was rotten. Here was the proof: Jeff was gasping, choking on spit and struggling to kick him off, and Toby wouldn't let him. Didn't want to stop. Couldn't stop.

"For fuck's sake, won't you  _stop?!"_

Toby pulled back. In his head, a nanosecond-long thought-film spooled out a life in which he'd kept on going. Not nice, he decided, and certainly not a wise choice. 

He rolled off Jeff and helped him to sit up.

"Son of a  _bitch,"_ Jeff growled. "Why'd you-I'm so-you damn Yankee bastards are all the fuckin' same!"

Toby glanced around the room and realised that the shapes had vanished. His stomach jolted.

"You said something," Jeff gabbled, "before you-what was it? Come on!"

"Strange things in the walls," Toby told him. "Gone now."

"I swear to Jesus....Things? In the God damn  _walls?!_ I don't-"

"They were like snakes," Toby interrupted, "or worms. They w-were....c-c-cuddling. I'm sorry. I'm sssoooo sorrr-r-r-ryy."

Jeff whipped his head around and sneered, the skin around his nose furrowing. "That's a lie. You ain't. You liked doin' that. God help me, I wish I had a knife...."

He slung his feet off the bed, hauled himself to his feet, and headed for the window.

Toby hopped up and reached out a hand to stop him. "W-wait, what are y-you doing?"

"Leavin'," Jeff snorted. He pawed at his eye sockets as he scrabbled around for the latch. His shoulders heaved; he was crying, his eyebrows knotting, his nails biting into his palms as he clenched his fists. He was a little pain body. The enormity of his crime hit Toby like a truck. 

"I-I  _trusted_ you," Jeff sobbed. He tipped his head back and moaned in agony; Mr. Rogers stirred and grunted in the next room. "I never got that close to nobody since my folks....since _that night!_ You know what it's like? Not havin' anybody to love?"

Toby knew. He sat back down onto the bed, his heart filling with sludge.  

"And ya know the worst part?" Jeff asked. He turned around and showed Toby all of his teeth. "I woulda gone with you, had you given me some kinda notice. Just springin' shit on me like that-you fucked yourself up. And the only person ya gotta blame is yourself."

He found the latch, wrenched open the window, and was gone.

Toby flopped backwards so that he lay sprawled crossways on the bed, his head and legs dangling off of it as though he was dead. A scummy wave of guilt and shame washed over him, leaving him cold and wretched. He got up and stood still for a moment, listening out for his father.

He'd forgotten what Mr. Rogers' voice sounded like; the brief reminders he'd had over the past couple of days hadn't taken root in his brain. These days, his memory was a steep bank of sand; nothing stuck. He heard nothing, and then a long snore.

From the distant forest came a shrill, wheeling scream.

\----

Jeff Woods had always considered himself a free spirit. He didn't like to trouble himself with consequences, or risks, or long-term planning; he'd always dived right into things, sucked up what good there was in the situation, and then sped away, too quick for regret. But this Toby boy had shaken that up and knocked it clean over. 

For the first time in his reborn life, he'd found himself thinking of the future. Crazy, yeah, but his entire schtick was insane and this had been the sweetest bit. Him and Toby-boy, living somewhere worn-down and homely-a one-bedroom flat, perhaps, or a few rooms on top of a strip club. (Jeff's fantasies tended to hover between decadent and depressing.) He'd keep himself clean, learn Braille, get a job at a convenience store. Toby would be a professor of something smart yet esoteric at the local community college. They'd be content and in love and fuck each other stupid every single night.

Well, that was a pile of bullshit. Jeff wasn't as mad at Toby as he was with himself. As he stumbled through the forest, kicking aside branches and replaying endless itinerations of what had just happened, he berated himself for believing he'd ever had a good thing coming. The universe had no reason to give him something so pure and good. He was too _wrong._ He was a rotten little bastard dog who'd torn his people to shreds and then run away from justice. The Bible had all those prayers that were really screeds, pleading with the Lord to not allow the corrupt to enjoy such luxury as they did. Psalm after psalm begged God to take away those ill-gained comforts-the silken pillows, the dancing girls, the hundred trueborn sons.

God was making some headway on that front, Jeff reflected, but He still failed to bring things to completion. Why was he himself allowed to live? A faint hiss sounded beneath his foot; either a gas bubble or a rat snake. Jeff whimpered and hopped away, the sinews of his heart twanging in fear.

Why leap away? that kernel of self-loathing murmured. Why did God let him survive? Or was this the true punishment? It felt like one.

As he blundered through a tight-knit copse of lime trees-the leaves are heart-shaped, the branches string together like arteries-he became aware of a new scent. It was cold, the way all dead smells are, but it moved and wafted towards and away from him. It was an antiseptic, life-hating stench. Salty, but unfishlike. Not a deer. Please don't be a person, Jeff prayed, easing himself onto his haunches and breathing deep. And if you are, be a woman or a child....a toddler....something I can get away from....

Then the scent was real, and it was _right there, oh sweet God,_ and it wrapped a rope of its own flesh around his neck. 

Jeff screamed, and the smell wheezed with laughter.


	8. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Toby raced through the field.

The grass whipped against his calves as he chopped his way through it, sending dewdrops and little crawly things flying all around him. He paid them no heed, not even flinching when a slug landed on his jeans. He didn't give a fuck, because there was that same scream again, arching into the air like a hare's death-shriek.

The woods were coming towards him instead of the other way round. The took one smooth step and swallowed Toby whole as a fish takes a fly. He tripped over a branch, righted himself mid-stride and kept on running, leaping over rocks and roots.

He couldn't talk, couldn't breathe even, had to force his lungs to open and then squeeze them shut. His brain was on fire, burning every last bit of sense and leaving only  _JEFF JEFF JEFF JEFF JEFF JEFF JEFF JEFF._

Be alive, he begged with the part of him that could still think. Stay alive. Fight it. Come on, Woods. Be brave for just a few more minutes. 

He rounded an oak tree and had to bend at the waist to vomit, because there they were-Jeff, lying spread out on the ground like something consumed and discarded, and the monster standing a little way away, sucking a limp tentacle back into its body.

* * *

 Jeff's body was still warm, but he wasn't there anymore. Toby knew that as soon as he shoved a hand up his shirt to grope the ribs and found no heartbeat. He still checked the wrists for pulses-none-and then the thick vein that throbs in the jaw-nothing. He moaned long and sick and shook Jeff by his shoulders. The head flopped to one side and the tongue slid out of the mouth, already pale and veiny, and Toby had to look away.

He had to turn to the monster, which was still there, and force his eyes to be steady when they met that bland grey face.

"Y-y-you d-did thisssss," he stammered, curling his hands into fists. His teeth caught on his tongue and drew blood. "T-tell mmeeeee why."

The thing didn't seem to care that he could see it. He didn't know why it should. It was taller than he remembered, twice his size at least, and its hands were white scythes.

Toby turned the corpse over. There was no blood on its back, and none on its front. The clothes were still intact. He felt over the head, but there were no bumps or indents where the skull would have been shattered. There were no bruises on the neck. The body was perfectly normal; it was simply empty.

 **I TOOK HIM,** the beast said. Its voice was like exhaust smoke, and it seemed to conjour itself in the most private parts of Toby's brain. He winced and stuffed his fingers into his ears, but it didn't work. The fucking son of a bitch was telepathic or something....

 **I REMOVED HIM FROM HIS CARCASS,** the thing continued. Toby thought he heard it snicker.  **BUT NOT LIKE THAT. I LIKE TO THINK MYSELF BETTER THAN SUCH BARBARICS. MY APPROACH WAS SUBTLE, AND IT LEAVES ME WITH SOMETHING TO TRADE.**

Toby snorted. "I w-w-won't l-let yoouuuuu k-k-keep the body. Fuck off."

**THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEAN.**

Even though he knew he was being set up for something horrifying, Toby's heart beat for the first time in five minutes. "You-you c-could put him baaackk?"

The monster spread its spindly arms wide.  **OF COURSE. BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO GIVE ME SOMETHING IN RETURN. AND YOU MUST DECIDE PRESENTLY, BEFORE THE CORPSE ROTS IN EARNEST.**

Toby glanced down at the dead face of the ground. He reached out and smoothed hair away from the only mouth he'd ever kissed, the mouth of the one person he could ever want. A fly landed on a ruined eye, found no food there, and moved on.

Toby looked up and said, "N-name your price."

He would say to himself, in the months and years that were to come, that the thing hadn't smiled. But it did. The sight jarred Toby; it broke something essential in his soul. From that day forward, he would no longer believe in a loving God. 

But that didn't matter just then, because the monster was ready to give its terms.

 **I KNOW WHAT YOUR FATHER DID,** it murmured.  **I AM CLOSER TO YOU THAN YOU KNOW. THE VEHICULAR CRASH....HE WAS DRUNK, TOBY. YOU'VE FORGOTTEN THAT. YOU HAVE TRIED SO HARD....**

A memory came to Toby, as sickening as a shark's fin knifing through calm water-Mr. Rogers stumbling home from a party in town legless at six in the morning, insisting two hours later than he was okay to drive them to Grandma's. His mouth fell slack.

 **I KNOW, I KNOW,** the monster whispered. It slithered forward and held Toby's jaw with its iron fingertips. Toby's legs turned to wet string, and he collapsed beside Jeff's cooling corpse. 

**I KNOW IT WASN'T OUT OF LOVE FOR YOUR FATHER THAT YOU CHOSE TO FORGET. I CAN UNDERSTAND WANTING TO LIVE IN PEACE. BUT IT IS A SICK PARODY OF A LIFE THAT YOU LEAD, TOBY. IT IS NOTHING BUT A FEVER DREAM. YOU MUST LET IT DIE. I OFFER YOU A CHANCE TO TRANSCEND IT.**

Toby's head was empty and dead already. How could he ever move on from this hell state? He shivered, suspended between the bliss of ignorance and despair. Wave after wave of memories came crashing down until he was drowning, until his lungs were saturated and his brain swelled.

 **COME WITH ME,** the monster insisted.  **I WILL RESURRECT YOU. YOU WILL HAVE A LIFE IN DEATH, TOBY. NOTHING WILL TOUCH YOU. IT WILL BE AS GENTLE AS THE MOMENT BEFORE FALLING ALSEEP.**

Toby gasped down a lungful of useless air and thought of sleepwalking through eternity. He thought about the pleasure of having someone to follow, of not having to think-to only be, and do. It was the mention of sleep that did it. He very much wanted the world to stop.

He met the thing's maddening gaze again, and nodded. A thread of hot blood ran from his nose and into his mouth.

The entire world went crazy for a single second, like a mirror kicked in. Toby screamed-once-and hit a carpet face-first.

He was in his bedroom. That door had reappeared beside his bed. The worms in the plaster were going crazy, and there were several of them now. The ceiling distended as they pushed through it. 

In the bedroom next door, Mr. Rogers snored and grunted. The rattle of his breathing thrashed Toby's ears. 

Jeff was nowhere to be seen. No matter; there was a murderer asleep five feet away. Toby stood up and stretched.

He'd always known, in a vague, half-formed kind of way, that it was his destiny to kill his father. The part of him that would have balked at this had been ripped apart by the Annewood monster's weaselling words, and now Toby feared nothing. 

He stumbled down the hallway, trying to recall where they kept the matches and the methylated spirits.

 

 


	9. I Could Never Pretend That I Don't Love You, You Could Never Pretend That I'm Your Man

Jeff came back to himself in the middle of the forest-he could tell by the leaf litter crackling beneath his head when he turned it, by the cool green smell of the air. The beast had gone, and although Jeff felt uneasy about missing out on a twenty-minute chunk of his life, he was grateful to be alive in the first place.

He figured he'd trek back to Toby's house and-father be damned-say he'd like to give it all another chance. Then they'd hump like feral dogs. Jeff grinned like a shot loon. Yeah, that'd be sure to put the bright back in the Toby-boy's eyes.

He set off, crawling on all fours because he didn't want to stub his toes on any roots.

* * *

 Hands shaking, Toby sloshed a canister of spirits across the perimeters of the house. The smell of it followed him like a stalking cat as he moved from room to room. The air was suffused with it, the way the air of a Catholic chapel hangs heavy with incense.

Every so often, Toby had to stumble into the bathroom to puke. After two or three rounds, the slop that came out of him was nothing more that clear fluid. A while after that-coating the house took an hour and a half-it became green, putrid string. Toby knew that it was coming from his small intestine, and he knew that it meant he was very sick. And didn't care.

He took a fifteen-minute break before tackling his father's bedroom. He took a beer out of the stash beneath the sink and tried it out. It was warm, sweet swill. He spat it out and yelled, "You killed Mom and Laura because of  _this?"_

The pig grunted and slept on. 

Toby threw the beer into the trash and picked up the canister. The door to Mr. Rogers' bedroom was ajar, but Toby knew it would creak if pushed too hard. He inched it wider and wriggled inside.

He didn't pay attention to the mumbling lump on the bed. It was only a symbol; nothing but a souvenir, a husk, something to be burned with the rest of the garbage. Toby poured the spirits into the carpet as though it were tea. He grimaced as it washed across his toes in a cold, greasy flood.

He left the empty canister on top of the filthy dresser and flitted out of the room. A manic happiness was building in him, feeding on his mission and flourishing. The field of flowers had gone to seed; he felt as though dandelion clocks were dancing through him. The matches were in the room where they kept the washing machine. When he gripped them in his vein-blotched palm, they felt as hot as life.

He shucked one out of the box and went into the sitting-room with it, where he'd plashed a massive puddle of spirits into the carpet. Teetering on the threshold, he lit the match, tossed it in, and galloped away. The carpet exploded into flame with a sound like somebody getting punched in the stomach; the heat from it toasted Toby's back.

"I'm done here," he said to the sweating air. "I'm so fucking done...."

The fire had spread into the hall, gobbling up the oxegen. Toby began to feel drowsy, and stumbled away from the flames. He fell to his hands and knees, crawled into his bedroom, and heaved himself into bed.

He wanted to die asleep.

* * *

Jeff heard the roar of the fire starting from the edge of the forest. His heart squeezed with fear, he yelled, "Toby? TOBY!" and began to run. He tripped on a rock and was pitched headfirst into the grass. as he lay there, panting, a blast of ferocious, thirsty heat rolled across the field. He screamed and scrambled back, terrified that the conflagration was eating across the grass to him.

He knew one thing-there was no way he could rescue Toby, or even his father. Judging by the heat and the noise, the whole house was burning. He wouldn't have been able to pull them out if he had his sight.

A thought struck him- _I bet that faceless bastard in the woods is behind this. He must've told Toby to do it....why, though?_

And then the _why_ hit him square in the chest like a subway train, and he knew in an instant that it was all his fault.

Sobbing, he got to his feet and headed back towards the woods. The dreadful antiseptic smell seemed to hang from every branch. but he found a sure scent and followed it. He was good at that; it was useful for finding the corpses of rabbits and squirrels that had been torn apart by other animals.

When the stench was so nauseating that he couldn't force himself to go any further, he put his head back and screeched, "WHERE ARE YOU, YOU FUCKIN' ABOMINATION?!" and waited.

"C'MON, I'M RIGHT HERE! I WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO THAT BOY!"

Then the stench had a form, and the form was standing right beside him, hissing like a crashed car.

Even though it was what he'd wanted, Jeff shied away. A sinous tentacle wrapped itself around his upper arm and held him steady.

The monster's voice was hundreds of rust-reddened nails, raking through his brain.

**WHAT IS IT TO YOU, RUNT PUP?**

Jeff twisted away from its wrath. "Kid's set fire to his fuckin' house! Was-was that the bargain that was struck? 'Cos you c'n have me, if that's what you want. I don't wanna live in a world that don't have that boy in it too."

It was probably his imagination, but Jeff could've sworn that the thing recoiled.  **THAT WAS NOT THE PLAN....THAT WAS NOT WHAT WE'D AGREED. I OFFERED HIM A PLACE AT MY SIDE....I SHOULD NOT HAVE PUSHED HIM SO HARD.**

As though it'd made up its mind, the monster began to slither across the forest floor with frightening speed, dragging Jeff with it.

**COME, BLIND WHITE WORM. HE MAY STILL LIVE.**

"Music to my fuckin' ears, Drainpipe," Jeff gasped, praying that it was right.

* * *

They stopped a dozen feet away from the roaring flames. The monster rattled out a sigh.

 **STAY HERE,** it told the squirming, damaged human that Toby liked so much. It could rather see the appeal; it had the shape and bearing of a pine marten, or a stoat. Quite comestible, it supposed-apart from the anomalous face.

The monster dropped the trash-person and glided into the fire. The inferno, of course, didn't hurt it-the long white tongues couldn't roast its dolphin-smooth hide. It picked through the ashy sticks of what had been furniture, sending out its sonorous beam.

**TOBY. WHERE ARE YOU, CHILD?**

Even if the boy were unconscious or dead, he would still hear. The monster knew this.

It came to a fiery doorframe and peered inside. The bed was burnt so badly that there was nothing left for the flames to consume; upon it was the twisted, charred body of what might have been a man. The monster measured the corpse in its head, compared its size to the image it had of Toby, and decreed that it was too tall and too fat. Most likely the boy's father. The abomination growled with displeasure and moved on.

The next room down wasn't quite as burnt; it was a bedroom, and a Dante's circle of fire surrounded the bed. The limp form sprawled across the bed was, without a doubt, Toby-skinny, with messy brown curls and insomniac half-moons slung beneath the eyes.

The monster stepped through the flames, picked up the body, and held it close.

 **CHILD,** it murmured into the furthest reaches of his tortured brain.  **WAKE.**

* * *

The day the monster of Annewood took Toby away dawned bright and airy.

"You sure you're gonna be alright?" Jeff asked him, playing with his hair.

"I'm sure," Toby rasped. His voice had been ruined by the fire, and he talked even less than he had before. Jeff sighed and laid his cheek on his head.

"What about you?" Toby asked him.

Jeff shrugged. "I'll be alright. I been wrasslin' this world and comin' out on top since I was thirteen years old, boy. I'll manage."

"You're going to follow us," Toby hissed, sounding amused.

Jeff gave him his best smile, and kissed him slow and gentle. "I might drop in from time to time. Help y'all out. All ya gotta do is yell, and there I'll be."

Something shifted beside them, and there was the monster. It and Toby must've shared a thought, a signal-either way, Jeff didn't know what prompted it, but Toby slipped off the branch and said, "Time to go."

"Yeah, I guess so," Jeff said, and sighed. He wasn't sad or scared, though. "Ain't no sorrow in parting from somebody you'll see again. Right?"

Toby smiled, kissed him again real quick, and was gone.

But he wasn't gone totally. Jeff heard his fucked-up tenor voice, and strained to hear the words drifting from only God knew where:

"Oh, Susanna!

Oh, don't you cry for me...."

Jeff understood. Flinging himself to the ground and sprinting through the grass, he sang out the last, sweet lyrics to say goodbye:

"I come from Alabama, with a banjo on my knee." 

* * *

Here's some [fanart](http://allyourfearsarecomingtrue.tumblr.com/image/137028543491) that I did for this fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's all, folks. I'd like to thank everyone who gave kudos, made a bookmark, and commented. Your support really made the difference between seeing this through and giving up. I may or may not write a standalone sequel, but for now my work here is done.


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